January 2016

01/31/2016

In Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe uses line drawings and only the thousand (or, rather, “ten hundred”) most common words to provide simple explanations for some of the most interesting stuff there is, including:

food-heating radio boxes (microwaves)

tall roads (bridges)

computer buildings (datacenters)

the shared space house (the International Space Station)

the other worlds around the sun (the solar system)

the big flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates)

the pieces everything is made of (the periodic table)

planes with turning wings (helicopters)

boxes that make clothes smell better (washers and dryers)

the bags of stuff inside you (cells)

How do these things work? Where do they come from? What would life be like without them? And what would happen if we opened them up, heated them up, cooled them down, pointed them in a different direction, or pressed this button? In Thing Explainer, Munroe gives us the answers to these questions and so many more. Funny, interesting, and always understandable, this book is for anyone—age 5 to 105—who has ever wondered how things work, and why.

01/26/2016

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these five families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals and generational changes that produced violent and unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century.

Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.

01/14/2016

Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping, captivity, and safe return captivated the country's attention. Here, in My Story, ten years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime.

Rarely do I get emotional reading a book, but Smart's account of her reuniting with her parents after months of captivity is incredibly touching.

01/07/2016

Adolf Tolkachev was one of the most successful and valued agents the United States ran inside the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He was an engineer and specialist in airborne radar who worked deep inside the Soviet military establishment. Over six years, Tolkachev met with CIA officers 21 times on the streets of Moscow, a city swarming with KGB surveillance. His documents and drawings unlocked the secrets of Soviet radars and weapons research years into the future. Tolkachev smuggled circuit boards and blueprints out of his military laboratory. His espionage put the United States in position to dominate the skies in aerial combat and confirmed the vulnerability of Soviet air defenses — showing that American cruise missiles and strategic bombers could fly under the radar.

Tolkachev’s story is detailed in 944 pages of previously secret CIA cables about the operation that were declassified without condition for Hoffman's The Billion Dollar Spy. The documents and interviews with participants offer a remarkably detailed picture of how espionage was conducted in Moscow during some of the most tense years of the Cold War.